Why go?

Some people have asked me why I am moving to Ethiopia.  I made a little video to give a small glimpse of the many reasons why I am going.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNTnTsvTxDI

Sad

I have been missing Ethiopia a lot more lately.  I don’t really know why.  Maybe it is because I am constantly thinking about it because I am in major preparation and fundraising mode.  I would say 95% of my awake time is spent thinking about and anticipating my upcoming trip.  I am just now at the 4-mth mark. . .October 2^nd can’t get here fast enough.  I sometimes feel bad saying that, as if in some way my wonderful friends and family will misconstrue that to mean that I won’t miss then immensely.  I will. . .a lot, but God has made a place for me in Ethiopia and it’s as if a part of me is missing because I am not with my new family.  I am just now beginning to process how intensely I will miss everyone here in the States and it is a bit overwhelming at times but I know where I belong and I can’t wait until I fit in again. 

Fekerite

I just received my monthly newsletter from Blessing the Children and I am so excited!!!   

Fekerite Tilahun is 15 years old and she lives in the Sunshine Foster Home at BCI with her younger brother, Teddy.  Both of their parents and another brother died from HIV complications.  Fekerite and Teddy went to live with their grandfather but he became unable to care for them so they were sent to live at the Sunshine Foster Home.  Fekerite is a very special young lady, as she is almost completely deaf in both ears. 

Imagine being an orphan in a third-world country.  Now imagine being a deaf orphan in a third-world country.  Unlike in America, schools (if a child is even attending school) in Ethiopia are unable to give specialized care to children with disabilities.  Being born with a disability is almost like being born with no hope of being able to provide for yourself in the future.

The management team at BCI was concerned about Fekerite’s future.  They decided that it would be a good idea for Fekerite to learn a skill.  Her foster mom, Tigist, will be her teacher.  Tigist will start teaching Fekerite how to sew and hopefully, Tigist and Fekerite will then be able to take on new students as to pass this skill on to others. 

The sewing machine and supplies were bought through the Blessing the Children’s Micro Credit Program.  This program has helped many families in Debre Zeyit start their own small businesses but more than that it has allowed families a way to provide for themselves.  If you would like to help other families through the Micro Credit Program please mail your checks to:

Blessing the Children

Attn: Micro Credit Program

2267 Fraser Rd

Kawkawlin, MI 48631

As always, your donations are greatly appreciated and put to great use to further help BCI families.  There are so many ways that you can help.  Just a few are:

*Pray blessings upon BCI and the children.

*Sponsoring a child.

*Sponsoring the Breakfast Feeding Program.

*Sponsoring the Micro Credit Program.

*Making a donation to the building fund.

*Making a donation that can be used as BCI sees best fit.

Check out www.blessingthechildren.org for more information on the wonderful people of Debre Zeyit that have stolen my heart!!

On a personal note:

Plans are quickly coming together for me to leave on a 2-year visa to Debre Zeyit.  I am planning to leave on October 2^nd.  I can’t wait to get back to my babies!

I am in major preparation mode as I am constantly thinking of all of the things that I have to do and buy before I leave.  Please pray for me, that God will use me in wonderful ways to bless the children and families in the BCI program.  Also, please pray about supporting me financially.  I need quite a bit of money and I won’t be able to work for money over there so I am fully relying on God and His blessings.  If you feel  led to support me with a one-time gift or even a monthly gift please mail your tax-deductible donation to:

High Praises Church of God

PO Box 1188

Anderson, SC 29662

Memo:  Jonnett Barrick

Any and all donations are appreciated more than I can say!!

Breakfast Feeding Program at BCI Academy

Imagine sending your child to school without breakfast.  This is the reality for many parents in Ethiopia.  Due to finances, BCI Academy hasn’t been able to provide breakfast or lunch to the students; and there is no free or reduced lunch program offered by the government of Ethiopia like there is here in America.

Two of the BCI Canada board members are in Ethiopia right now and they have been testing a breakfast feeding program for the past three weeks.  They were only able to choose 12 children out of the nearly 80 children from the academy to participate in this feeding program.  They chose 12 of the most neediest kids (but let’s be honest here, they are all needy and worthy of such a program) and had them come to school early and they have been feeding them breakfast for the past three weeks.  They have seen such positive results from these children that they desperately want to continue this program. 

Of course, they need the finances to be able to do this.  To continue feeding these children they need $140/mth.  That is approximately $0.58 a day per child.  Yep, it only takes roughly 58 cents to feed a child breakfast for one day! 

I ask that you prayerfully consider supporting this program.  All of these children need a good meal but it is most dire because a lot of the children in the BCI program are HIV positive and while they have access to free retroviral medication from the Ethiopian government they are in desperate need of adequate nutrition to keep them healthy. . .more so than an HIV negative child.

Please pray about supporting this program on a monthly basis or even a one-time gift.  All tax-deductible donations can be mailed to:

Blessing the Children International

2267 Fraser Rd

Kawkawlin, MI 48631

Please include “Breakfast Feeding Program” on the memo line of your check.

I thank you so much in advance for your support of this worthy cause.

For more ways that you can help, please visit:

http://www.blessingthechildren.org/ 

Bring on the rain, the roof is done!

It has taken me awhile but I wanted to give everyone an update on the roof project for Betselote and Efrata. . .it is done!!  Praise the Lord!  I can’t even explain how happy I am for this precious family to have a solid roof over their heads! 

Thank you so much to those of you that donated your money to this project.  People I don’t even know donated to this roof and that just amazes me.  God is so good and faithful, isn’t he?!?!  Seble, Betselote and Efrata’s aunt, contacted me on FaceBook and thanked me for making this happen for their family but more importantly, she thanked God for “this miracle”.  I didn’t make this happen, God did.  I was just blessed enough to be the vessel that He used.

Here are some pics for you to enjoy:

Here’s what I’ve got coming up to raise more money for Ethiopia:

*I am selling local merchant discount cards that are $10.  The cards are good for one year and can be used multiple times.

*I will be having a big yard sale on April 2^nd.  If you want to do some early spring cleaning, I will be more than happy to take the stuff off of your hands!  J

*Matty’s in downtown Anderson has graciously agreed to do a charity day for me.  I will get 10% of any receipt that has my name written on the back of it on April 4^th from 11am-9:30pm.  Please come out and eat!  J

Wishing Many Blessings on My Ethiopian Family this new year.

It seems so surreal that I have been home from Ethiopia for two months.  I still feel such a strong connection to all of the wonderful people that I met.  Oh how I miss them all!!  This Christmas season has been hard on me.  Not just missing everyone, but realizing how commercialized Christmas has become in America has been a slap in the face.  I always on some level knew that the vast majority of Americans have taken the real meaning out of Christmas but after experiencing everything that I did in Ethiopia and then coming back to the USA during the Christmas season. . .let’s just say it was a huge eye-opener.  Christmas is a time to reflect on the greatest gift that God has given us.  There is no gift that could ever compare to the gift of Jesus. 

I wish countless blessings upon Blessing the Children, the orphans, and the impoverished widows of Debre Zeyit.  I pray that God compels people to give great blessings to these people.  They of course always need financial blessings, but they also need missionaries to come and serve.   The need is so great but the smallest of gifts can change a life forever. 

It is my wish for the New Year that God uses me as a spokesperson for BCI to my family and friends.  Nothing would make me happier then to know that a child was sponsored because of my experience in Ethiopia.  I pray that my family and friends seriously pray about sponsoring one or more of these precious children.  These are the children that need help:  http://blessingthechildren.org/Adana/Child_Info.pdf

“Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.”  (James 1:27 NLT)  I wonder what the world would look like if everyone who claimed to be a Christian lived by this verse?

For more information on how you can help, please visit:  http://www.blogger.com/www.blessingthechildren.org.

Here is an article I wrote for BCI:  http://www.blessingthechildren.ca/Forms/BCC_Post_2010-11.pdf

BCI Academy

A few weeks back I said that I would use my blog to profile families and people that I met during my trip to Ethiopia.  I figured I should start out by profiling the group that I went with.  Blessing the Children International (BCI) is based out of Michigan.  Keith Strawn, BCI President and Founder, was led by God to care for improvised orphans and widows, so in 2001 BCI was born.  This calling eventually led to the opening of the BCI Academy and the Adana Children Center in Debre Zeyit, Ethiopia in January 2008. 

The BCI academy currently houses grades 1-6 but eventually it will go up to grade 12.  BCI has a child sponsorship program that currently has 114 children enrolled in it, approx 80 of those children attend the BCI Academy and the other children attend local schools.  It takes $90/mth to fully care for a child in the BCI program.  ALL, literally 100%, of that money goes straight to Ethiopia.  None of the child sponsorship money stays back in America.  Here is how BCI breaks down how the money is sent:

1/3 – Direct child support (like food and clothing)

1/3 – Education (school tuition, books, uniforms, school supplies, etc.)

1/3 – Ethiopian Programs and Services (like children’s medical care, activity days, social workers, etc.)

Here is an article comparing BCI to other sponsorship programs:  https://webmail.suntrust.com/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://blessingthechildren.org/Forms/BCI_Post_2010-07.pdf

A child can have 1, 2, or 3 sponsors.  You are able to help sponsor a child for $30/mth, $60/mth or you may decide to be that child’s only sponsor for $90/mth.  There are many children in the program that are still awaiting full sponsorship and there are many more children in the community that are waiting to become a “BCI kid” but need sponsors to get accepted.  To sponsor a child go to:  http://blessingthechildren.org/caring/sponsorship.html

The great thing about BCI (other than 100% of the money going to Ethiopia) is that you can truly have a relationship with your sponsor child.  You are able to write them letters and send them packages.  Also, the children write their sponsors once a month and the letters are mailed to the BCI Michigan office and then they mail them out to you.

BCI welcomes mission’s trips all year long.  They have 10 scheduled trips per year that individuals and groups are able to sign up for or if you have a rather large group and you are not able to come during the 10 set dates, you are able to contact BCI and they will work with you to accommodate your travel dates.  BCI was such a pleasure to work with, they were very accommodating and never got upset when I emailed them question after question after question.  Their goal is to help you have the best experience that you can while serving God and the children of Ethiopia.

Once a month, BCI has an activity day at one of the partner churches.  All of the BCI kids and families come and there is a worship service, games and crafts, and a feeding program.  What was really awesome about the feeding program is that they hire some of the BCI moms to prepare and serve the meals so not only are the children and moms being fed, but the moms are being provided with an income!

BCI also has two foster homes; one houses 4 children and the other houses 9 children.  The children accepted into the foster home are in dire situations with absolutely no family that is able to care for them.  BCI doesn’t believe in the “institutionalized care” of children.  They believe that children thrive better when they are in a loving home.  A lot of the children in the BCI program are orphans but BCI has been able to secure loving homes for them but of course, there are children that literally have no one so that is what the two foster homes are there for.

Other than child sponsorship, there are so many ways that you can help BCI.  You can mail money and specify where you want it to go, such as, school construction, food support for a particular family, shoes, etc.  Or you can donate money and allow BCI to decide where to use it.  There is so much that needs to be done.  Please, don’t hesitate to ask me any questions about BCI or my trip. 

I pray that through my trip and experiences, God touches many hearts of my friends and family and many of these children will get sponsored and checks will be sent for projects.  I also pray that God will show others, like He has for me, ways that they can cut back on their spending to bless some of these precious children.  I have, first-hand, seen the difference between wants and true needs.  Needs are scary and devastating and heart-breaking and people with these true needs require assistance.